Liz Jones claims Tiverton's shops are boarded up and teens lurk on streets

I am one who does occasionally shop in town shops, particularly as some COMPUTERS in West Exe particularly comes to my mind who treats his loyal customers with plenty of respect and will always help if he can. If all small independant shops do this then more of us I'm sure would use them when we can.

The latest addition to this story is a report carried in the Daily Mail about Liz Jones having a face lift - presumably so she can't be recognised when she next visits Tiverton!
Read it here:
http://tinyurl.com/76ececn

Oh come ON !!
This is the Daily Mail for heavens sake and written for folks who think they want to go back to the 1950's!
Liz Jones enjoys strong opinions and wit - not facts.
We all KNOW that there are four mini roundabouts in Tiverton and not the "sheer number" Liz Jones writes. One way street? Yes, this is true but it works with the single exception of the traffic lights stopping the flow at the top of Bampton Street..
But the thrust of her article concerns the effort needed by independent retailers so here is something that we can all do to help: lets spend our money in our own town shops rather than the national retailers where the profits go to city boardrooms and investors. If we do this then our town's retailers will have the increased footfall they need to employ more staff and hold more stocks.

*woman

The women is dead right! The town is dying and the council aren't going anything about it. People blame the internet and the supermarkets for the death of the high-street but while they haven't helped in the last five to ten years, this has been coming since I was nothing more than twinkle in my fathers eye.

The economic downturn, the rises in VAT, taxes, utility bills have all contributed massively. Everything has gone up but what people earn! The average joe can't afford to shop on the high street anymore and that's down to the guys earning the big bucks charging more but paying their staff less.